


Deep

by yeaka



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Fanart, Fix-It, Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 10:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2847665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeaka/pseuds/yeaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo brings Smaug back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deep

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Saw _The Battle of the Five Armies_ and wanted to just tweak the ending a little. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t own The Hobbit or any of its contents, and I’m not making any money off this.

  
  
[Tumblr post.](http://yeaka.tumblr.com/post/106116418010/the-battle-of-the-five-armies-reprise)   


He sucks the air into his lungs, not so much saving up as trying to stifle fright. He knows it’s the right place, and he thinks he can see the faint shadow below, but just how _far_ below? Hobbits weren’t made to swim. But they weren’t made for dragons, either, and Bilbo slowly rises to his feet, the small wooden boat rocking traitorously beneath him. It feels like it’s going to capsize at any moment, and he takes another ragged breath, summoning every last scrap of courage he ever found.

Then he hurtles over the side, throwing himself to the water. It hits him, icy cold, like glass, shattering all around him, but he dives in head first, hair plastering around his face and water rushing into his ears. His hands reach for the bottom, knowing when to go even when his eyes are clouded, blinking back the sting. It’s a murky blue-green-black everywhere he looks, with stray slivers of light leaking down from above. He kicks his way under and _swims_ before the fear can seize him and make him stop. 

There’s no other life around him. The water is clear of fish, sharks, eels, whatever else the dwarves and the men told him of; nothing dares come near the shadow that Bilbo now strives towards. He kicks at his tunic, fastened tight around his waist, his mythril vest weighing him down, but he needs that help; he needs to drop like an anchor. He sinks towards the bottom, pushing himself, clawing at the foggy world around him, because he doesn’t know how long he can hold his breath and he still doesn’t know if he can do this. It was only a thought, a feeling. A whisper in his dreams that _this might work._ The body stretched along the lake’s floor is more massive than Bilbo remembers it: a thousand times his little length. He swims for it nonetheless, nearer and nearer, until the blackened scales are independently shimmering before him, beautiful even in death. 

A magnificent creature, Smaug was. Is, when he still whispers in Bilbo’s mind. Bilbo’s head is running thin, the water clawing at him to rise, but he flattens himself along the fallen dragon’s flank nonetheless. The light is too poor to make out anything but the jagged contours of hard scales, so he uses his hands to trace the dragon’s side, under one outstretched wing, around behind a long leg. Bilbo paws his way up the dragon’s stomach, and his hands brush it—that one bit of weakness—ashen and crumbling beneath him. He’s running out of air. 

With what energy he has left, Bilbo digs into his pocket, around the lining of his jacket, pulls forth the glowing gem that drove his friend mad. The arkentstone glimmers white through the dark, casting an eerie, ethereal glow along Smaug’s side, swaying, the way magic things will, with that tremor of _power_ and beauty. Bilbo can see the strength in it, the spells he could never hope to understand. Hope is all he has. He presses it into Smaug’s side, digs it deep into the gaping wound between hard scales, and the angelic glow dissipates from the water, sinking, instead, under Smaug’s skin. 

Smaug’s chest lights. It ripples, not with the red promise of fire, but the flush of radiance, of ancient incantations and life itself. Bilbo’s hair is a mess around his face, like his heavy clothes around his body, and he pushes his bangs back as he waits, prays. His lungs are straining wildly in his chest—he can’t breathe. There’s no air to go back. He holds tight to Smaug’s body, crawls his way up it, reaches spike after spike along Smaug’s long neck, climbing to make out the mighty curve of Smaug’s muzzle, half embedded in the sand. 

Then, like his dreams have blossomed true, an eye slithers open. Smaug’s ridged brow creases, the inner eyelid swiping back, the yellow-orange-gold iris inside filling with colour. Smaug’s pupil retracts, then blazes brighter, stronger, reeling back to fixate on Bilbo’s little form, and Bilbo, choking on the water and his delight, clings tight to Smaug’s crown of horns. 

There’s a single moment where the lake is quiet, where Bilbo’s out of bubbles to make, where he thinks perhaps he’s drowned and gone mad, for Smaug can’t be still alive. But the light of the arkenstone’s faded, fused itself into Smaug’s chest: the last scale in his mighty suit of armour. Smaug breathes, and the smoke tosses the sand up in their wake. 

Smaug’s legs are under him a second later, and he leaps through the water with a thunderous boom, wings clapping, Bilbo burying himself in his spiked cage as the world blurs around him. They burst out the surface in a fraction of a heartbeat, Smaug’s roar filling the air and water splashing in a wild cloud: a fresh storm. Bilbo clings for his life, gulps in air, and Smaug rises, wings beating like a hurricane. They spiral into the sky, the clouds, Bilbo’s heart racing in his ears.

Smaug turns towards the sun. For a moment, he’s gold again, washed bright in the silhouette of morning. 

Then he’s soaring off with Bilbo in his midst, ready for the dawn.


End file.
